Red Bull U-turn on driver announcement at Spa

20 August, 2013

Christian Horner with Helmut Marko

Helmut Marko has backtracked on an earlier statement, declaring that Red Bull will in fact not announce its 2014 driver lineup this weekend in Belgium.

Earlier, amid reports the world champion team has decided to promote Daniel Ricciardo to replace the Le Mans-bound Mark Webber, Marko told Germany’s Sport Bild that “we will make an announcement at Spa”.

After Hungary the world champions also indicated that they would be making an announcement regarding the 2014 driver line-up after the summer break.

But on Tuesday, the Austrian was quoted by SID news agency: “We will express ourselves when the time comes, and that will definitely not be at Spa.”

Meanwhile Kimi Raikkonen’s manager Steve Robertson said that talks with Red Bull had ended. Rumours now suggest that the 2007 world champion is now more likely to return to Ferrari in 2014.

Marko did not want to comment.

“What we will do will be the best for the team, in the medium term,” said team owner Dietrich Mateschitz’s right-hand man. (GMM)